The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 10

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr., bro. & co.
Number of Pages: 1102

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which the other lacked, and they carried things all their own way at the bar, till the advent of a man with the best attributes of both, fitted for the law by nature as well as by training, brought their equal, if not their superior, into the field, in the person of Wil- liam Strong.

William Strong was a Connecticut Yankec. educated at Yale college, then a New Eng- land schoolmaster, and finally a young law- yer seeking his fortune in eastern Pennsyl- vania. On settling in Reading, he at once accommodated himself to the customs of the community, learned Pennsylvania German, and, in order to become acquainted with the people and to establish a country clientage, opened an office in Kutztown, to which he would walk eighteen miles one day and back the next. Strong leaped into prominence al- most at once. It was clear that his abilities and legal knowledge surpassed those of any other, and he became in time the nnques- tioned leader. He was also a public man of the higher type, was an old-line Democrat- though joining the Republican ranks at the time of the Civil war-and was twice a rep- resentative of Berks county in Congress. In 1857 he was elected to the Supreme Court of the state for fifteen years, but resigned in 1868 to resume practice in Philadelphia. He remained here until 1870, when he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of the United States by President Grant, an office he filled till retired by act of Congress in 1878. Judge Strong thus be- eame a national figure, and by having the casting vote which confirmed the constitu- tionality of the Legal Tender acts, he sub- jected himself to a storm of criticism, both favorable and unfavorable, his motives being assailed on one side and defended on the other to such an extent that the clouds of strife have not yet entirely subsided. It is not for a local biographer to discuss at length the public actions of a national char- acter. Suffice it that Judge Strong's opin-

THE BENCH AND BAR OF PENNSYLVANIA

ions were among the ablest ever written for the Supreme Court either of Pennsylvania or of the United States, and in certain respects remind the reader of some of the great prod- ucts of Chief Justice. Marshall. Judge Strong was a master of English style. He thought clearly and logieally, and expressed himself foreibly and without circumloeution in plain, striking language. His dietion was pure, and, though devoid of the meretricious skill of a florid and diffuse composition, had about it the flavor of culture and literary ap- preeiation. We cannot pass from this period without mentioning Robert M. Barr, the brilliant but erratie author of "Barr's Re- ports"-George G. Barclay, the cultured and publie-spirited scion of a wealthy Phila- delphia family-and Elijah Deehert, the Christian lawyer and noble-minded social re- former.

From the middle of this eentury to the early seventies or later those most eonspieu- ous in the profession were Dennis O'Brien, John S. Richards, Jacob S. Livingood, Sam- uel L. Young, and Albert G. Green.

Jacob S. Livingood is a descendant of the first settlers of the county, was educated at the Yale law school, and is now one of the Nestors of the bar. In his early years he was a partner of Robert M. Barr and assisted him in compiling the state reports-Barr follow- ing the courts, which were then movable, and Livingood putting the material together afterwards. He was always a scholarly man, greatly interested in the history and origin of the law, a familiarity with which, he be- lieved, was essential to the education of every true lawyer. He was widely known and had an immense praetiee, which on the creation of the Orphans' Court was con- ducted largely in that jurisdiction.

Dennis O'Brien was a man of Irish ex- traetion, endowed with the natural wit, readiness, and power of speech, which char- acterize his race. After acquiring a good practice in Reading, especially in the erim-

inal courts, he moved to Philadelphia, and was there elected to the bench.

John S. Richards was one of the most striking characters who ever practiced in the county. From his earliest years he dis- played an intense fondness for literature and indeed for knowledge of every description. and in later years his stock of general in- formation was simply enormous. Like most men of this type, he never devoted himself so eompletely to the law as to master it in all its parts, but rather pieked out some particular braneh, as medical jurisprudence among others, and thoroughly. familiarized himself with that. He was a great promoter of the cause of temperanee, and on one oe- easion, during his varied career, while filling the office of mayor of Reading, he had a list made of all the habitual drunkards in the city and served notice on all the liquor men not to sell to these people-his emissary be- ing thrown through the window of a saloon while attempting to serve one of these notiees. For years he was a school director, and was so much interested in the welfare of the sehools that he is said to have eoolly walked out of eourt in the midst of an im- portant trial when some school business needed his attention. He was for years an editor of the Berks and Schuylkill Journal, and being a most virulent Whig, wielded a vigorous but eaustic pen, wherever the op- posite party was eoneerned. His political speeches, too, were fiercely partisan, though remarkably clever and entertaining. In short, he was a radical by nature, and in consequence was more of an advocate and fighter than a safe legal adviser. His varied knowledge, fluent speech and immense fund of aneedote and illustration made him a most effective jury lawyer and a most dan- gerous competitor in all legal battles. Judge Woodward used to say that Richards eould get a man out of a bad hole better than any lawyer he ever knew. These attributes gave him the faculty of impressing people with

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J. S. LIVINGOOD.

BERKS COUNTY

his powers, and he built up an immense prac- tice. He served as district attorney for two years and was at one time solicitor for the Philadelphia and Reading railroad. John S. Richards died in 1872, and his life and char- acter are still the subject of interesting anec- dotes among those who knew him.

George F. Baer .- In the year 1868 a comet suddenly flashed across the legal heavens of Berks county in the person of George F. Baer, a young man of twenty-six, from Somerset county, the editor-in-chief of a newspaper at nineteen, and at twenty-one the captain of a company of volunteers in the Rebellion. While engaged in all these employments he kept up a course of private study and also managed to spend a year at college. These habits of study he has re- tained through his busy career, and having a natural taste for reading of all kinds, a magnificent memory, and wonderful powers of expression, he has developed into a man of far broader education than most college graduates and is a talker from whom the best informed can always gain some new informa- tion. The case which first brought him into deserved prominence was that popularly known as "The Muhlenberg Title." Ex- Governor Joseph Hiester died intestate, pos- sessed of an immense estate and leaving five children or their issue. His daughter Mary, married to Henry A. Muhlenberg 1st-who afterwards married another daughter, Re- becca-died intestate with one daugliter. liv- ing. This daughter, Mary Elizabeth, died childless, leaving all her estate by will to her husband, E. Jonathan Deininger, who at the time in question was in possession of the premises. Baer was examining the title for a man named Levan and resolved that Dein- inger had absolutely no right to the prop- erty, because his wife's will was executed before the Married Woman's Act, so that Mary Deininger died intestate, and her land vested in her half-brothers and sisters, the children of Henry A. Muhlenberg 1st and his

second wife, Rebecca Hiester, who were of the blood of the original ancestor, Joseph Hiester. The title from Deininger had been passed by some of the best lawyers at the bar, and this new and evidently correct opinion created general consternation among those holding under him. Hiester H. Muhlenberg, the half-brother, and Henry A. Muhlenberg 3rd, the half-nephew, of Mary Deininger, put the question at issue by bringing an injunction against Jonathan Deininger and his lessees to prevent waste in the cutting and removing of timber. Baer became counsel for Deininger who, having a clear estate by the courtesy, finally settled the case by an immediate transfer of all his interest to the Muhlenbergs for the sum of $60,000. Baer was as strong in the management of an exciting trial in court as he was in the dry task of examining a title. In the year 1870 a man named Deail, just released from a three years' sentence in the penitentiary, committed an atrocious murder upon his vagrant companion, Harlan, and hurled the corpse into a creek. There was nothing but circumstantial evidence of the crime, but Baer threw such vigor and fire into the prosecution, his management of the testimony was so skilful, and his address to the jury so telling that a conviction fol- lowed as a matter of course. The reputation of the young stranger was now secured, he was soon made solicitor of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, and his legal and busi- ness career has been one of unvaried success ever since. As he acquired property and became more closely identified with the great corporations which he represented, he gradually abandoned the law for the execu- tive management of a number of large manu- facturing companies in Reading and else- where. Meanwhile his connection and familiarity with the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad became more and more complete, till he was evidently the deus ex machina of the system, put the road upon its feet by

TILE BENCH AND BAR OF PENNSYLVANIA

engineering the successful reorganization of 1896, and was finally elected president in 1901. The scope of this article does not per- mit me to write of George F. Baer as the great railroad manager and "captain of in- dustry," but having become more or less of a national figure, the local historian must leave him, as Judge Strong, for the pen of the national biographer. As a lawyer, how- ever, some few words must be spoken of one whose rivals, even, acknowledge as the ablest at the bar. He was never a close student, in the sense that he would plunge deeply into a subject and work over its every phase ; but he had the faculty of mastering almost at a glance the salient points of a legal prop- osition and of selecting the underlying prin- ciples upon which it should be decided, and this, with a memory which seemed never to forget a decision which he had once read and which enabled him to lay hands on it al- most at once, gave him a grasp of the sub- ject and an ability to advise or act at a moment's notice, which no mere student without a dash of genius can ever hope to at- tain. He was also a most convincing speaker, often bringing you to his side of the question by the sheer strength and logical earnestness of his argument, rather than by the arts of persuasive eloquence. Ile possessed that greatest faculty of the advocate-a sceming conviction on his own part of the absolute justice of his every cause, and when once upon his feet deliver- ing an address appeared to forget himself entirely and to become an embodiment of intellectual force. In short, though in other respects a man who acquired his position by patient toil and well-directed industry, at the law he was another character and seemed endued with the spark and fire of real genius.

Besides the lawyers of the preceding pe- riod and those subsequently on the bench, the two, who with Baer, occupied the fore- most rank during the period from the early

seventies to the middle of the cighties, were Cyrus G. Derr and J. Howard Jacobs.

Cyrus G. Derr is the son of the late Will- iam M. Derr, a prominent attorney of Leb- anon, and after attending the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and practicing for a few years in Lebanon, he removed to Reading in 1870. Among his first cases was a curious one in freight discrimination. A man named Septimus Thomas discovered that by ordering coal from Tamaqua to be shipped through Reading to Sinking Spring and re-shipping it from that place back to Reading, he could save $1.01 per ton on the direct shipment rates from Tamaqua to Reading on the Philadelphia & Reading railroad. Thomas made a contract to this effect with the freight agent at Sinking Spring, but the company notified him during the shipments that they would charge the same rates for reshipment, and his consignec paid the higher charges under protest. Thomas then sued the company for the dif- ference between the two rates, and thoughi he lost the case, on the point that the pay- ment by his consignee was voluntary, Derr handled the matter with such skill, and showed such a knowledge of the important legal principles involved, as well as of every little point of law even remotely connected with the case, that he was at once recognized as a master; and as the merchants generally had been greatly interested in the question of discriminating freight rates, his name be- came widely known in the community. He soon won the reputation of being the most thorough and best prepared lawyer at the bar, and when the Pennsylvania railroad built a line to Reading in 1883-84, he was chosen their solicitor. To illustrate his methods of procedure, on being appointed to the above position, he rightly anticipated ceaseless litigation with the P. & R. railroad, and accordingly read and made abstracts of the P. & R. charter, the City charter and all the acts of assembly and decisions of the Su-

S. L. YOUNG.

BERKS COUNTY

preme Court upon the subject of railroads. He also prepared with minute care the form of an injunction, so that one morning when a man rushed in breathless saying that the P. & R. were appropriating part of a street claimed by the Pennsylvania railroad, all Derr had to do was to fill in some blanks in his bill in equity and obtain a judicial pro- hibition of the proceedings almost immedi- ately. The writer has always regarded Cyrus G. Derr as the best model that a young practitioner can adopt, not only on account of his excellence in all the higher parts of the profession, but also because he is an cx- ample of how persistent study, dogged per- severance, and constant self-control can train the mind. It is true that his intellect is naturally of a high order, but in consid- ering the mastery of the law which his splendid efforts have given him, we feel that the intellect of the ordinary lawyer is cap- able of somewhat the same development and differs from his only in degree, not in qual- ity. His knowledge of the law is immense. Not only has he literally absorbed Black- stone, Kent, Greenleaf and the elementary treatises, but he has on the one hand delved deep into the ancient masters, such as Coke and Littleton, and on the other kept himself abreast of the times by thorough familiarity with modern decisions. His legal argu- ments and opinions are exhaustive, he touches every phase of his subject without being diffuse, and his logic is clean-cut, orderly and resistless. His addresses to the court, either on questions arising upon the trial or on the more formal ones presented before a judge in banc or to the Supreme Court, are models of legal argument, not emotional dross to catch the car of an audi- ence, nor dogmatie statement to carry away momentarily by sheer force, but a calm, un- impassioned appeal to the intellect of the court, carefully constructed, earnestly pre- sented, and framed in seeming fairness even to the other side. Indeed, fairness is a char-

acteristic trait of Cyrus G. Derr. His mind is essentially judicial, he looks upon both sides of a question, and his consideration for the opinions even of his inferiors makes him a person with whom it is always pleasant to have business or social relations. His habit of considering a proposition in all its phases makes him careful in giving advice and his judgment usually safe to follow. With such deliberate nature he does not rush into law suits, "but being in," so bears it "that the opposed may beware" of him. In addition to his legal training he has studied rhetoric and elocution with no small pains, his style of speaking is formed upon the best ex- amples, and he reads aloud, especially classical English, with an emphasis and ex- pression which catch and reproduce the real thought and spirit of the author. It is hardly necessary to say that he is as well read in literature and history as he is in law.

George May Keim, son of General George de Benneville Keim, and a member of a fam- ily well known in the eastern section of the state, was born in Reading in 1805, studied law with Charles Chauncey in Philadelphia, and was admitted to the bar in 1826. He was cashier of the Farmers' National Bank of Reading, was largely interested in rail- road and furnace affairs, and took so active a part in the military organization of the state that he was elected major-general of the Sixth Division, including the counties of Berks, Schuylkill, Dauphin, and Leb- anon. In 1838 he was elected as a Democrat to an unexpired term in Con- gress, and was re-elected to this posi- tion for two succeeding terms. On his retirement from Congress, President Tyler offered him the choice of three positions- Minister to Brazil, Governor of Wisconsin Territory, or United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He de- clined a nomination for governor of the state but was elected mayor of Reading and after- wards presidential elector-at-large. At the

THE BENCH AND BAR OF PENNSYLVANIA

outbreak of the Civil war he threw himself into the cause of the Union with great energy and did much to keep the Democratic party of the district in the right path. It was while drilling a company of volunteers that the unusual exertion and excitement of his duties brought on an attack of paralysis which resulted in his death in the year 1861.

Samuel L. Young was a son of Associate Judge Daniel Young, read law under Will- iam Strong, of whom he was always an ardent admirer, and became prominent soon after his admission. He was a major during the Rebellion and for almost forty-five years was commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States. He, too, was interested in the refinements of the profession, and was deeply versed in legal lore. His mind was in many ways exactly adapted to the law, orderly, precise and systematic. He was a great fighter and took the keenest pleasure in all the little passages at arms that occur in the trial of a case. Major Young was also an inveterate reader, took a lively interest in historical subjects, and was particularly fond of the study of Napolcon, upon which subject he had collected a large library and in which he was thoroughly versed.

J. Howard Jacobs was born in the lower part of the county, studied law in the office of Judge Banks, and was admitted to the bar in 1863. He first became prominent as a criminal lawyer, but has since built up a large general practice, usually fighting for the rights of the individual. His reputation as a criminal lawyer, however, has not de- creased with his increasing civil practice, but he stands at the head of the Reading bar in that respect, while his position in the state is equaled by few and surpassed by none. His particular forte is as a trial lawyer, and in this respect he probably has no supe- rior at the Berks county bar. His success results from careful preparation of every piece of evidence, thorough knowledge of human nature, and natural eloquence in

speaking. Before entering the court room he puts every one of his witnesses through a rigid examination, for the purpose not only of ascertaining what their testimony will be, but also of forming an estimate of their char- acter, so as to use the proper method of questioning them and to guard against any pitfalls set by the other side into which peo- ple of their nature might be liable to fall. To see him examining a witness upon the stand is the keenest intellectual pleasure. If his own witness, he seems to recognize almost instinctively how to treat him so as to bring out what is desirable and repress what is injurious; and when cross-examin- ing a witness he has the faculty of insinuat- ing himself most effectively into his confi- dence. and of inducing some damaging admission almost unconsciously. Under- standing human nature so completely, he sees just when to use the bit and when the spur ; he is ingenious with the frank, shrewd with the cunning, domineering with the insolent, hasty with the rash, and assuring with the timid. In short, he adapts himself so entirely to the peculiarities of his subject that it takes the most truthful and sagacious witness to escape his wiles. In speaking he is equally effective. His style is full of life and color, abounding in short but striking metaphor and in catching story. Himself a man of large heart and generous instincts, he appeals to the hearts of his hearers in eloquent and impassioned language. But here, too, he has that art of the greatest orators-adaptation of means to the end in view. His speeches are essentially verdict- winners and it is this quality which makes him so dangerous a rival. After listening to some of his closing speeches the writer has sometimes heard lawyers remark, "Jacobs is not at his best," though to one who has studied the advocate and the twelve men he was addressing, it is clear that the parts of the speech which displeased the critics were the very things calculated to win over some

BERKS COUNTY

particular individual upon the jury. He also possesses a wonderfully musical and attrac- tive voice, which helps greatly in his persua- · sive eloquence with a jury. He is a great be- liever in giving encouragement to beginners, and a word of praise from him has often induced a young lawyer to persevere more earnestly along some particular line of work.

During the publication of this article J. H. Jacobs died rather suddenly, after a short sickness, on August 18, 1902.

I have now brought this history to about 1885, and here I intend to cease any further discussion of the individuals practicing at the bar. Those who are among the leaders, as well as those who are not, are all either friends or acquaintances of my own, and it is not for me, their everyday associate, to dis- cuss the relative merits of the various mem- bers of the bar. It is enough to say that in the honest and deliberate opinion of the writer the general standard of the bar at present is higher than it has ever been; that there are more lawyers who have made a genuine study of .legal principles, caused probably by the more complete training given in modern law schools, and that pa- tient industry and real merit are more likely to win than ever before. In addition to the establishment of law schools, another cause of this progress has been the abolition of the ridiculous old examinations for admission, described in this article, and the introduc- tion by Judge Woodward of a system of pre- liminary and final examinations-the former upon History, Latin, English, Mathematics, and general subjects, and the latter upon elementary law-both conducted by a regu- lar standing committee of the bar. In the humble judgment of the writer, there are at present certain rules in regard to admission which imperatively demand reform, though the best solution of the problem would be a compulsory state examination for all coun- ties. Another marked change in the last couple of generations is the disappearance

from particular prominence of the brilliant, but dissipated advocate. In times past there were almost always at the bar some lawyers of pre-eminent abilities-men of splendid conversational and oratorical powers, of great personal magnetism, and often of fine education and high literary attainments- who were so addicted to fast living that often for weeks at a time they would be so sunk in dissipation as to be utterly incapable of attending to business, but on returning "clothed and in their right mind," would be welcomed by their clients and be retained again until another periodical spree, when the same process of fall, recovery and for- giveness would be repeated. The modern tendency of legal, as well as of other, busi- ness to gravitate into the hands of a few en- terprising individuals or large corporations .- though making the progress of the young lawyer more difficult, through the absorption. of possible clients in the trust companies and similar institutions-has greatly helped to eradicate this evil. The busy and experi- enced managers who come to consult an at- torney have no time to wait until their solici- tor has recovered from a fit of intoxication. They will not tolerate such procedure upon his part, but seek a counsellor who will treat them with their own prompt and orderly methods of business. There is still an occa- sional example of the old brilliant but irre- sponsible type of lawyer, but he is fast dis- appearing, and even his brilliant and dramatic rhetoric before a jury is becoming less effective and less frequent, and is being superseded by the conversational and per- suasive style. The modern lawyer may be a high liver, but he is not a periodical drunk- ard-the modern juryman may be influenced by his feelings, but he likes to be addressed in simple phrase. There has thus been a change for the better, both in the intellectual and moral side of the bar, during the last fifty years, and I will conclude with the hope, indeed with the belief, that in the

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The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 10

Author: Publication date: 1903 Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr., bro. & co. Number of Pages: 1102

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr., bro. & co.
Number of Pages: 1102